Jesse Ball - A Cure for Suicide

There! She was there — it was Hilda, throwing bits of earth. She had seen him at the window. She was crouching there in the yard, waiting. He looked down from above — the street, the fence, the yard, the porch, Hilda. Hilda!

Be as quiet as possible, as quiet as possible, he told himself. He eased out of bed, and went down the stairs. Out the back door and into the yard.

Hilda rushed to him.

— I went to your house, he said, there was…

And at the same time, she said,

— They took me away, they took me away, darling. Oh. I waited for you and waited for you, and you never came, and then I went back to the house, and Martin was there, and he was angry — he was so angry…

— Took you away? Who?

— I woke up in the back of some kind of closed truck. They were moving the bed that I was in. I was lying there, and we were stopped for some reason. I jumped out the back and hid, and the truck drove on without me.

They stared at one another. Hilda was not even wearing proper clothes — just a nightgown. It must be true — they must have taken her while she slept.

— They’ll come looking for you. When the driver gets where he’s going. When was this?

— Last night. I walked all day, and then hid and waited to come here. Look at my feet.

Her feet were covered in cuts from walking barefoot. One was partially wrapped with a cloth. It must be true.

— How did you find your way? he asked.

— What do you mean?

— From the road where you got out of the truck. How did you know where you were?

— There isn’t anything out there. Just a road. It’s just a road. I went the opposite direction the truck was going. As you approach the town, the waste turns slowly green. There are trees and grass, and then the town begins. I can show you. I don’t know if there’s time.

A great confusion and tiredness settled over the claimant. He felt that he was dealing with the situation and understanding it, moving through the details with celerity and sharpness, and then he wasn’t. A weight settled and confounded all the variables. Everything seemed the same. He could make no progress.

— I don’t know, he said. I don’t know what to…

— Help me hide, she said. Someone is coming.

— Martin, Martin.

A voice was calling from the house. It was the examiner. A panic rose in the claimant’s heart. He didn’t want to do anything wrong. Nothing at all.

— I…

Martin hesitated.

— My love, said Hilda, you must…

She was pulling at him desperately.

— Help me. They’re all against me.

— Martin!

The examiner’s voice came from within the house.

The hall light came on, and then the light on the back porch.

There was an overgrown bush along the fence. Hilda pushed into it, and hid just as the examiner came out the door.

— Martin, she said. Is everything all right?

THE CLAIMANT stood there in confusion. He could hear the slight breathing of Hilda where she hid. The examiner stood looking down at him from the porch, a scant twenty feet away. What was he doing in the yard? Why was he there at all? What could he say?

He had never lied to the examiner. He didn’t want to. She was standing there on the porch with a quilt wrapped around her. Her face was full of concern for him. If anything, her appearance in the middle of the night was even more aged than usual. He felt a sympathy for her, a profound worry. Also, he was terrified that he would be found out, and that she would be displeased.

— Martin, are you all right? Shall we get help? Come inside. Come with me.

The weariness that he had been feeling grew in him. He walked to the house and went up the steps. There he was, standing beside her. He found himself whispering, speaking to the examiner. He found himself talking to her, telling her things. What was he saying? What had he said?

The examiner looked deeply into his eyes, squeezed his arm, and nodded.

— Come into the house, she said.

They sat at the dining room table and the examiner made tea for them. She toasted bread and brought it out on a plate and they sat there. When they had been sitting awhile, there was a scream from outside.

— They have found her, said the examiner quietly. Don’t worry, she will be all right. She is young and strong. But she is very sick.

She said this especially quietly.

— Hilda is very sick, and needs our help, she repeated.

She was holding the papers he had given her, the sheets from the book. He didn’t remember having given them to her, and then suddenly he knew that he had. It hurt him to think of it. He had handed the pages to the examiner. He had pointed out where Hilda was hiding. He started to cry.

— You were right to get help for Hilda, said the examiner. Don’t grieve over it. It was reasonable. It was the right thing to do. Now, let’s get some sleep. Would you like something to help you sleep?

— Yes, said the claimant, I would.

They went upstairs. She gave him some medicine to drink; he lay down in his bed and slept long into the morning, and it was the examiner who woke him, saying,

— It is almost noon! Time to get up, time to get up.

And already then, the episode with Hilda felt far away. Had he ever known her? Had he?

AND THIS WAS how it was for him. Mostly, he was never worried about it — he felt that it was something that had happened to someone else, and he was untouched. Yet, sometimes, as when one looks in a mirror, when one hasn’t seen oneself in a long time, and one catches sight of this face, one’s own in a mirror, and feels — recognition, sometimes he was moved to a great sadness and he would almost cry. His face would twist and he would hold his head in his hands and think to himself: what have I done, and he would feel that he had betrayed the one person who was his.

At such times, the examiner would watch him with concern. When it happened twice in one day, a week after the incident, she came to a resolve.

I believe, she thought to herself, we have stayed here too long.

THE EXAMINER was standing at the bottom of the stairs when the claimant went to come down in the morning.

— When you come down the stairs, she said, you will not go up them again, not in this house, so come down slowly and purposefully and with full intent.

— What’s that? he said.

— We are moving to a new village. This business with Hilda. It was not your fault. But, it is a failure of sorts. I am taking your name from you. Worry not — you will have another. You are not Martin anymore. I am not Emma. Do not refer to me as such.

— I should get my…

— You don’t need your things. What we need is already there, in the place to which we’re going. This travel is different from the ones we have done before, do you know why?

— Because you are telling me about it?

— That’s right. I am telling you about it, so that you will know. I trust you. I feel you should know things. It will be the same in some ways. We will sleep while we travel, so we won’t see much of it, and when we wake up, we will be there. I wanted to prepare you, and to give you your new name before you left.

— My new name, what will it be?

The claimant walked down the stairs, slowly, deliberately. He arrived at the bottom and stood over the examiner.

— Are you ready to hear it?

— I am.

— Henry, she said. Henry Caul. That is your new name.

— Henry, he said. Henry Caul. Henry Caul.

— Henry Caul, she said. It is time for us to be going. Come and sit with me on the porch. My name is Dahlia Gasten.

— Dahlia Gasten, he said quietly.